5 Offline Ways to Promote Your Website

You’ve probably thought a lot about how to promote your website online. You buy advertising, post links to social media and write great content.

What about offline promotion? There’s a huge opportunity to promote your business in real life. Don’t miss these opportunities to spread the word about your business.

Business Cards

Business cards are cheap and a great way to promote your business. For under $20 you can buy hundreds of customized business cards at online print shops like Vistaprint or Moo Cards.

There’s no need to limit your website promotion to just one line on your business card. Take the opportunity to print a “lead magnet” on the backside of your business card. For example, a real estate agent can print “Get your free home value analysis at (website).” A massage therapist can print “Learn the 5 hidden benefits of massage at (website).”

The opportunities are endless. Be creative and use all of the real estate on your business card.

T-shirts

Think about all of the people who see you in a day. When you walk through the grocery store you probably pass over 100 people. Those are 100 people who can see your brand and website address!

Print a custom t-shirt with a clever design, your logo, and your domain name—and become a walking billboard!

Many years ago you had to print dozens of t-shirts at a time. Now, custom online shirt printers will sell you one customized shirt at a time.

CustomInk has a wide selection of shirts starting at $20 including printing. Buy them for your staff and friends and the price per shirt drops.

And consider other clothing items that can promote your business. Maybe you need custom-printed hats, for example. Some businesses give away socks or baby onesies or other clothing with their brands. The sky’s the limit—but it also pays to know who your customers are and what they’re most likely to wear.

Window Stickers and Car Wraps

If you run a local business then you probably drive around town for both business and pleasure. Why not promote your website to the thousands of cars you pass each month?

There are two options depending on how crazy you want to get.

The simplest is a sticker in your rear window promoting your business. You can order these stickers for about $20 and up. Or if you want to go all out, consider a full car wrap. This gives you plenty of real estate to promote your web address, phone number, and services. Wrapping a four-door car usually starts at $2,000 but consider that as an investment, because a car wrap can make a big impact.

Billboards

If you like to go big, then billboard advertising is the way to go. A standard billboard in nearly 50 feet wide and 14 feet tall. That will make a big impression!

Billboard prices depend on the size of the billboard, the location, and how many cars pass it each day. A full-size billboard typically starts at about $2,000 per month, but it varies widely depending on the market and placement.

Smaller billboards (about 20’ by 10’) can start below $1,000/month.

Cable TV and Radio

Online advertising gives you the ability to micro-target based on a customer’s interests and location. Surprisingly, you can also target cable TV advertising like this.

Cable operators divide their territories into small buckets and sell a portion of the advertising based on these small areas of their viewing area. Add in channel selection and you can target your most likely customers.

The cost to run these targeted ads is fairly low, with rates starting at about $25 per 30-second spot. Once again, this varies widely with the size of the area and how many people are likely to tune in. You’ll also need to buy a package of ad spots and pay for video production.Or consider radio. On-air spots can reach a large audience, often people in their cars. Make them fun and people will remember them—and your business. Just make sure you use a memorable URL. It needs to be short and easy to spell or they’ll never get to your site.

And cable advertising and radio spots have benefits beyond just the people who see your ad. You can actually advertise about advertising.

Think about a tennis instructor in the suburbs. She can buy 50 commercial spots on ESPN that only show in her local area. She can then tell her prospective customers “see our commercial on ESPN”, making her business seem bigger and more prestigious than otherwise.

Think Different

These are just five ideas to market your business offline. Of course, you should also make sure to take advantage of good online marketing including email marketing. Think about your business and where your customers come from. Then promote the heck out of your website.If you don’t have a website yet, have you considered our Website Builder? You can create a quick business site over your lunch hour!

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Andrew is the founder and editor of Domain Name Wire, a publication that has been covering domain names since 2005. He has personally written over 10,000 posts covering domain name sales, policy, and strategies for domain name owners. Andrew has been quoted in stories about domain names in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times and Fortune.
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